Print Issue: December 5, 2002

Father Corentine Finnegan, A Founder Of Conyers Monastery, Dies

By Rebecca Rakoczy, Staff Writer

CONYERS - On a clear, chilly morning, the monks of Our Lady of Holy Spirit Abbey laid a long-time brother to rest. Father Corentine Finnegan, OCSO, one of the founding members of the Georgia monastery, died Nov. 26 after a long illness. He was 84, and entering his 60th year in the order.

The funeral Mass was celebrated Saturday, Nov. 30.

Father Finnegan, who entered monastic life at the age of 19, was one of the original 20 members of the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance who traveled from Gethsemani, Ky., to open a new monastery in Rockdale County in 1944 at the behest of their abbot. He helped build the monastery and lived there for the rest of his life. Monks, family and friends recalled him as a holy man, devoted to St. Thérèse, the Little Flower, a hard worker who also had a penchant for chocolate and Coca-Cola in his later years.

In his homily, Father Anthony DeLisi, OCSO, superior of the abbey, quoted from Father Finnegan's own writings to his superior just before his entry into the Gethsemani community in 1937:

"I know the monastery is the best place in the world because there, there is peace and quiet and I can serve God in a way better than in the outside world, where sin is all around. Then some day, when it comes to my time to die I will not fear death but love it, because it will be the only thing that separates me from my God who I love so much, and at death this separation will be ended."

Father Finnegan had been ill for the past four years, and died quietly Tuesday morning, his hands clutching a rosary. Referring to his illness, Father DeLisi noted that Father Finnegan had been "called in his own unique way to share in the sufferings of Christ, but now at last he has attained his final wish."

After the funeral Mass, everyone processed out into the small graveyard adjacent to the church. As morning doves cooed as if on cue for the ceremony, the body and grave were both sprinkled with holy water and incensed by Father DeLisi.

Then his fellow monks carefully lifted his shrouded body out of a simple wooden box into the raw red earth, while Romans 8:18-39 was read. Father Finnegan was buried clutching that same rosary he held on his deathbed, as his fellow monks chanted the antiphon, "Yes, I shall arise and return to my Father."

Afterward, members of the community, joined by Archbishop John F. Donoghue and Father Finnegan's caretaker Jorge Fagundo, each sprinkled a shovelful of dirt over the body.

The dirt of the monastery had been an integral part of Father Finnegan's life as a groundskeeper there. Father Luke Kot, OCSO, also one of the founding members, remembered Father Finnegan as a mainstay on the grounds, helping with landscaping for many years. But Father Finnegan's first duties were that of helping construct the new monastery.

"I remember him shoveling wheelbarrows of dirt as we were digging under the superior's residence," Father Kot said.

In those days, the order's members took a vow of silence, and the then Brother Finnegan devised a sign language to communicate with other monks, said Father Kot. "He was a model religious," he said.

The two men were among a group who first lived in a barn that was on the property, and slept for a while with cows and chickens, before completing a wooden monastery structure in December 1944.

The current church, monastery and retreat center were completed in the late 1950s and early '60s.

Born in Cicero, Ill., on Aug. 24, 1918, Father Finnegan was the second of five children, and a first-generation citizen of the United States; his parents had emigrated from Ireland. Baptized Bernard Joseph, he was educated by the Sisters of Mercy and the Christian Brothers. Father Finnegan was attracted to the Trappist order in high school, and also to St. Thérèse, said his sister, Sister Bernadita Finnegan, a member of the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, based in Dubuque, Iowa. His sister is the only surviving sibling. She attended the funeral along with Father Finnegan's sister-in-law, Mary Finnegan.

"We used to go to Mass every single morning," both walking the 10 blocks from home to church before breakfast, she said. "He was a very holy kid and had a devotion to the Little Flower." It was a lifelong devotion that led to him being allowed to correspond with the Carmelite sisters, she said, an honor that was bestowed upon very few.

Father DeLisi also noted that Father Finnegan "frequently prayed the sorrowful mysteries of the rosary."

In the years during his illness, he was cared for in the abbey infirmary. Most recently, Fagundo and Pierre Seraphin, both employees of the monastery, cared for him. Fagundo said that Father Finnegan prayed a lot during his illness, but also maintained a sense of humor and a love of chocolate, chicken and Coca-Cola.

Father Finnegan's death is the third at the monastery this year, leaving just two original members of the Gethsemani group living.

In June, Dom Augustine Moore, OCSO, another one of the original group of founders, died.